Pakistani Pharmacy Allegedly Selling Fake Drugs

Bahawalpur police and health officials are investigating a local pharmacy that has been allegedly selling fake injections and fake antibiotics.

Bahawalpur police and health officials are investigating a local pharmacy that has been allegedly selling fake injections and fake antibiotics.

The owner of Rehman Medical has been accused by several patients of distributing fake drugs in complaints to the local police. The Bahawalpur Health Officer Omar Javed has ordered an inquiry into the complaints, reports The Pakistani Express Tribune.

Based upon laboratory analysis, the medications sold at this private pharmacy are spurious. “Some of the medicines have no antibiotic content in the mixture. They are just placebos, being used to fleece customers,” he said.

The store was inspected by Health Department Inspector Naveed Aslam, who reported that they confiscated fake drugs but that the store’s owner evaded capture.

Health officials said that the patients allege that two doctors at Victoria Hospital’s dialysis center required them to purchase medications from Rehman Medical.

“Many doctors get a cut of the profit from both pharmaceutical companies as well as medical stores. These two doctors specifically told customers that they couldn’t find their medicine anywhere else,” Aslam said.

In addition to the inquiry into the pharmacy, the doctors in question are being investigated by hospital officials, as well as suspended from work. Health Department officials sent over 100 samples of medications to the Punjab Quality Control Department for analysis, saying that if fakes were identified, a provincial level inquiry will begin.